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Dyke Daddies
All stories on this web site are purely FICTIONAL. The people depicted within these stories only exist in someone's IMAGINATION. Any resemblence between anyone depicted in these stories and any real person, living or dead, is an incredible COINCIDENCE too bizarre to be believed. If you think that you or someone you know is depicted in one of these stories it's only because you're a twisted perverted little fucker who sees conspiracies and plots where none exist. You probably suspect that your own MOTHER had sex with ALIENS and COWS and stuff. Well, she didn't. It's all in your head. Now take your tranquilizers and RELAX.
Subject: Dyke Daddies (all samples cleared)
Lines: 441
Hello, All,
I read this piece when it came out and it blew me away. It
still blows me away. I've re-read it a number of times and
I am still finding new stuff in it. It was originally
published in On Our Backs Jan/Feb issue. On Our Backs holds
the copyright on this piece and they asked me (very nicely,
I might add) to include their 800#. Its at the end of the
post,if you're interested. Hope you enjoy this article.
NOTE TO THE SQUICKABLE: The following is an investigation of
age-play and S/M between consenting adults. Issues surrounding
incest are raised and discussed. Continue at your own risk.
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DYKE DADDIES
By Linenea Due
Hands fidget, eyes roll, legs are crossed and recrossed.
Finally the dam bursts. "Daddy, can't I be excused, *please*?"
It's an entreaty heard in millions of households-except this
time the speaker is a 27-year old woman-and "Daddy," three
years older, is an annual participant in Gay Freedom Day's
Dykes on Bikes contingent.
This scene wouldn't go over big in Peoria-but does it even
pass muster in the women's leather community? When I brought
up the subject of dyke daddies to some S/M pals, the remarks
were not encouraging.
"Who would want to play with incest?" asked one woman.
"It reminds me of the fall of Rome," said another.
"You *can* go too far, you know," said a third.
And yet, when the First Annual Dyke Daddy Contest was held in
San Francisco early this year, it attracted a full house of
spectators and participants, as well as a panel of judges who
chose B.C.Cliver as 1992's winner.
"I don't think dyke daddies are a fad", says Cliver. "I think
of it more as another facet of women's sexuality that's
finally come to the surface. The feelings were always there,
only now there's a label for them. 'Daddy' is a lot closer to
who I am than 'Mistress.'"
No argument there: Cliver, 30, who freelances as a personal
trainer at a number of gyms in San Francisco, is a bodybuilder
and looks it. She flexes her biceps, tips her black leather
cap forward, and waves a finger at her "little girl", 27-year
old Bobbi Marshall.
Marshall snaps to, fetching a spoon so that Cliver can muddle
the foam in her cappuccino.
"Part of it's being a butch top," Cliver continues. "but being
a daddy means there's a lot of tenderness involved. Maybe it
allows butch dykes to give the kind of nurturing you can as
a mother. After all, most ofus aren't going to have children".
We don't usually associate topping with nurturing-yet anyone
who enjoys playing with power knows there's a lot of nurturing
on both sides of the S/M equation. And that emphasis on
caring-the protective cloak that daddy wraps around his
charges-is, according to everyone I spoke with, the single
most unifying characteristic of daddy play.
So why are my buddies sounding the death knell of Western
civilization ?
A participant at a recent seminar on daddy play had a partial
answer. "I hesitated to attend this program," she admitted.
"It's too intimate. And it's really different for each person.
Some people have been incested and are really into playing
daddy. It helps them deal with their childhood experiences.
And some haven't, and are into it. And some people are just
really upset about it, both those who have survived incest and
those who didn't have to deal with that."
"When I'm being daddy, " she continued, "and I don't feel like
I'm *playing*-the person I am with one lover isn't the same
person I am with someone else. And however daunting a role
may appear-like if I'm supposed to be an abuser-when I'm in
that role I'm in a delicate and vulnerable place"
This observation apparently struck a nerve, because a number
of tops leapt in to complain that bottoms assume they're
all-powerful.
"They think you're their parents, and they start unleashing
all this
hostility on you," said one woman.
Another woman agreed, "I know. I never thought when I got into
this that I could end up with a rebellious teenager on my
hands. When you take on this dynamic, it's fraught. Age
play, incest, those kinds of taboos can be really playing
daddy doesn't have to be about incest at all."
(OOB typo)
B.C. Cliver agrees; in fact when I mention incest to her, she
grimaces. "I know too many women who've been incested for that
to appeal to me. I've done a couple incest scenes and it was
hot, but afterwards both the bottom and I were really
un-settled. I understand how other people could enjoy it, but
it's not for me."
Cliver's little girl agrees. "Even without incest," says
Marshall, "some stuff about playing daddy is hard. My father
was an alcoholic with a volcanic temper. He used to order us
around-get me this, do that. Then along comes B.C. At first
when she'd tell me to get her something, I'd cringe. We had
to work it out. I can answer back with her. When she gets
short-tempered, most of the time she's hungry. I tell her to
go eat a bagel. I could never do that with my father. He
might kill me."
Cliver says she started playing daddy when she was in a
relationship with a woman who owned a dog. "Whenever I walked
in the door, the dog would start jumping around, and my
girlfriend would say,'Daddy's home.' It just fell into line."
She touches Marshall's hand. "When I met this one, I told her
that's how I wanted it to be."
Marshall, a strawberry blond who's a peer counselor and
student as San Francisco City College, smiles. " When B.C.
said she wanted to be my daddy, she told me to pick an age.
'What are you talking about?" I said, 'I've got an age!"
Cliver shakes her head. "Obnoxious," she tells me.
Marshall continues without a hitch. "Then she told me about
these couples where the kids were like seven or eight. We
looked at each other and said, 'No way.'" They both laugh. "So
the most we've managed is like 16. Oh, sometimes I'll go
littler, if I want something, or if I'm being punished. But
what I really am is a rebellious teenager."
It seems that one daddy's nightmare is another daddy's wet
dream. Cliver and Marshall couldn't be more tickled with each
other-they're constantly stroking, touching, smiling. Marshall
informs me that her straight friends accept Cliver as her
daddy.
"They have to," she says with a defiant adolescent shrug.
"that's the way it is."
Cliver says S/M enters the picture in the form of punishment
and reward. "If I really need to punish her, I'll do it with
something that's borderline nonconsensual."
"Oh, don't use that word," Marshall objects. "I agreed to all
this."
"I just mean I use an implement she doesn't like. In her case
it's a Fiberglass cane."
Marshall sneaks me a wink. Daddy clearly doesn't know
everything.
"The thing that pisses me off," said one daddy at the seminar
"are these kids who come over to play with my kids and expect
me to be their dad too. I think that's really inappropriate."
"Of course it is!" a woman cried into the din of general
agreement. "It's sexual, for god's sakes."
And therein, for many, lies the rub. Sex and kids don't go
together, even if the "kids" are on the wrong side of 40,.
It's an interesting exercise in how fantasy, roles, and
reality can slide around, merging in ways we might not expect.
I discovered, for instance, that the assumed age of the kid
made a difference to me - under 15 started straying into the
realm of what I considered nonconsensual, because the
power imbalance is too great for the child to give authentic
and meaningful consent. I had to keep reminding myself that
every-one was over 21. And I wasn't the only one slipping and
sliding.
"My first scene was around incest," one seminar participant
said. "the woman I was playing with had chosen to be around
six or seven, and the idea was that I, as daddy, went from
being a good person to being and abuser. I found that I had
to move out to role to fuck her. I had my own incest
experiences to deal with. I felt like things were breaking up
inside of me, part of me was dying. I just couldn't take on
that role."
For some people, though, rewriting painful history is what
this is all about. "I've had girlfriends who haven't known
they were incest survivors until they discovered it with me,"
one woman said. "We've had to be okay with the fact that it's
hot. I think you have to rip the scab off and let it bleed
before it can be healed."
"Look," another woman said, "the big difference is that the
bottom's turned on. I'm a top who's willing to deal with
someone else's nightmare. Tops take on these stigmatized
identities so other people can work through their shit. But
it's how S/M operates, its always paradoxical, you tear
someone up to give them a liberating experience."
"You take on a great responsibility when you play with these
loaded topics," one woman cautioned. "You're probably going
to be dealing with abandonment issues. Shit can and will come
up, but the likelihood is that you're going to get back as
much as you give."
"Part of my agenda was to be a better dad than my own dad,"
another woman noted. "But after dealing with bottoms I started
to realize why he was such an asshole."
"The kids have such a marvelous freedom from responsibility,"
one woman agreed. "They're always obnoxious, always testing."
Okay, we get it that daddies are vulnerable-but how about the
kids? Those attending the seminar had evidently been told that
children should be seen and not heard, so I set up an
appointment with Ann Wertheim,who's written a number of short
stories and articles on the daddy theme.
(I've read a few 'em, the're def-Cadivec)
Wertheim, 30 has short hair and a mobile face that's
exceptionally soft and open. She's manager of the Gauntlet in
San Francisco, a one-stop piercing emporium where they perform
the piercing and sell the jewelry to adorn it. Wertheim
herself has a tongue piercing, but it's only visible in rare
flashes. She leans toward me and divulges that she's has
punishment fantasies since she was four or five.
"At first they weren't sexual," she says. "Well, no, that's
wrong. At first they weren't *genital*. They were always
sexual. They were fantasies of being spanked or chastised by
someone older, like a camp counselor or a teacher. When I met
this woman who was turned on by daddy stories in Drummer
magazine, it just clicked." She pauses. She was significantly
older, 15 year's difference. When we broke up, she said
that it was too much responsibility. I think what really
happened is that *she* felt too responsible. I may be a little
girl, but I'm an adult too"
The odd part of this is that while both Bobbi Marshall and Ann
Wertheim *are* adult, not to mention thoughtful and
articulate, there's a part of them that corresponds with their
chosen age. Wertheim is almost kittenish.
"At first I didn't have an age for my little girl," she says,
sipping her Calistoga. "Then things began evolving. Once an
incest component came in, I got an age, around ten or twelve.
See, I've always told myself stories, but lately I've been
able to verbalize them. Now my girlfriend adds sexy elements.
It's like she can get inside my head and tell my story."
She glances up to see if I understand. "What's happening with
our story now is that I've never had sex with anyone except
my daddy. Just recently daddy decided to bring mommy into
this. Daddy doesn't want to fuck mommy anymore. he just wants
to fuck his little girl and mommy has to stand around and
watch."
"Is mommy real?" I ask.
Wertheim shakes her head. "No. Though once I did play with a
mommy. She was materna, a big nurturing woman. Now that
everyone else in the world is into daddy, I should move on to
mommy." She laughs. Except it wouldn't work. I like butch
women too much."
Where exactly does butch leave off and daddy begin? For that
matter, how do top and daddy differ? Jacquie Hansen explains
that dad is responsible for his charge's welfare in a way that
butches and tops are not. Above all, being daddy means being
protective.
Hansen, 39, has short hair and a braided tail. She parks her
motorcycle on the sidewalk in front of the cafe and shrugs off
her jacket. Moments later, her kid arrives, a "little boy" who
says she wants to remain incognito. "My business could
suffer," she explains.
Hansen send her off to get water. I'm beginning to see the
advantage of playing daddy-these adult kids are much more
serviceable than the usual kind.
Hansen seems surprised when I ask about incest. "Well," she
says, "that element is always there underneath. Whether you've
been incested or not, anger and hurt feelings can come up. But
I'm not the person who caused those feelings. I'm a loving,
caring daddy. I'm in control of who daddy is"
The "boy" comes back with the water and asks permission to
tell me that while daddy may be strict, he is never abusive.
"Our parents weren't listening to us," Hansen affirms as she
pats the couch next to her and her "boy" obediently sits. "If
there's a problem with one of my little boys or girls, we can
talk about it." Whenever Hansen makes a pint by thrusting her
hand into the air, her "boy" catches it on the downswing,
capturing daddy's hand in her lap until the next emphatic
gesture.
Hansen began playing daddy while living in Greece. "The people
I was living with started referring to me as their daddy. They
saw me as the kind of father they wanted to have."
"Were these people adult women?" I ask.
Hansen nods.
"Did this daddy-play include S/M?"
"I don't just do S/M in scene," Hansen explains. "I live S/M.
I'm a multitude of things, and being daddy is part of it."
Is being a daddy something that arises in context, or is it
a gut knowledge about yourself? Did women know, the way they
might have known they were butch, that they were daddies when
they were, say, ten?
"It's part of me, sure," says Cliver, "but it's brought out
by another person. Let's say it's *awakened* by someone else."
Hansen has "always been stern and to the point, and people
identified that as being paternal." She shrugs. "I'm a leader.
I tend to carry people with me. People feel they can be
vulnerable around me. But as a top I'm vulnerable too. Both
the daddy top and the top top can be soft and stern. It's just
a different persona."
Ann Wertheim says she knew her destiny from an early age. "The
daddy stuff is my heart," she says. "It's more at my core than
being a lesbian. Sometimes I feel alienated from the S/M
community-whips and chains and handcuffs don't resonate for
me because they aren't what parents would use on their kids.
Top/Bottom involves my intellect and my body, but not my
spirit."
What is it that daddy play brings to dykes? The fact that
daddies have been popular in the gay male community for
centuries is no surprise: men don't have a lot of roles that
allow tenderness, and daddy/boy is a perfect script for the
nurturing men crave but are rarely allowed. But aren't dykes
light years beyond such a stifled state of affairs? Aren't
two women the very embodiment of empathy and caring? Sounds
suspiciously like what your straight friends say when they've
decided they want to sample the wares on the other side of the
sexual orientation fence.
"I guess daddies like it because they get all this trust,"
Wertheim says, shoulders moving, head moving, as if she can't
stand to be demure in this cafe a second longer; she just has
to break out in loud purrs. "I really am a little kid inside.
The very best thing about daddy is that he loves you no matter
what."
What about mommy? Isn't this stuff kind of anti-feminist?
"Daddy's an archetype," says Jaquie Hansen. "I think lesbians
have become willing to be more vulnerable, to let things in
that are scary."
And of course, the daddy that a dyke becomes, no matter how
reflective of her experiences with men or with her own father,
is still a female creation. Said one woman at the seminar,
"When I'm playing daddy, I'm professorial, wearing wingtips,
smoking a pipe, just like my father. He was just an ice-cold
man. Now I get to know who he would have been if he had
laughed."
So it's not the collapse of Rome or even particularly
startling, thought for many people there's an inherent problem
about using age-play to establish roles in a relationship. In
a top/bottom dynamic, even one that's played out 24 hours a
day, both parties function as adults, and both can take care
of the other within the context of their roles. The same is
true of butch/femme. But with daddy/kid, one is being a parent
and one a child. In order to interact and communicate as
adults, both have to step out of their roles, and given that
the roles are sexualized, this can create a layer of
confusion. Feeling that one must always be a parent is, I
suspect, what's behind the complaint that being a daddy is
"too much responsibility." Yet, if the individuals involved
hare the right psychological "wiring" to find daddy play not
only a turn-on but deeply fulfilling, then they have the
motivation to overcome that difficulty.
Most of the women described in this article live daddy/kid
full time. Probably many more women choose an element of age
play that appeals to them and is psychically less threatening
-an unrelated older friend, say, or a flirtation with a baby
sitter-and inject it as spice into their sex lives on an
occasional basis. Even a brief dabble into these kinds of
archetypes can be challenging-and not only to those who have
been incested. After all, we're social animals; civilization
requires that we accept certain rules to be accepted into the
"tribe"-whether it be our family or the community. For some
women, eroticizing those ancient truths in a setting where
both partners have control can be both freeing and inspiring.
"I think of my daddy as a bear rug who can cover me no matter
how strong I am," says one woman. And as Jaquie Hansen says,
"It's good that people are able to be daddies, because there's
a lot of little boys and girls out there who need us".
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